A Writing Question

[Nerys Ghemor]

OK...a few of you will know what occasioned this question, but for the rest of you, this is going to sound like it's completely out of the blue.

I found myself wondering recently if I am something of an oddity in my generation. I MUCH prefer to write in cursive and I can read it well in most cases. But I usually don't for fear that my co-workers won't be able to read it. I find that a lot of people don't seem to read or write in cursive anymore...some because they don't like it and others because they don't know how. And usually it's younger people.

So now I have to know...am I really the odd one out here?

If you are comfortable doing so, feel free to give your age (approximations are fine...this is not a scientific poll). I'd also be interested to hear your anecdotal experience of what people do in your country. Maybe this is just a US thing?

 

[Kestra]

I'm 26 and I've always found cursive quite irritating to write.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

See, that's weird...my printing looks like absolute, total chicken scratch, like a 1st grader did it. Readable, but looks like crap.

But my cursive gets me compliments from older people when they see me writing in my journal where I'm free to write how I want to.

Now I haven't quite figured out how that happened, because it used to be I'd get bad penmanship grades in school for both my printing AND my cursive. But somewhere along the line, I took it and turned it into my art. (It probably got that way in high school/college.)

It may help that I am probably of the last generation that had to handwrite most papers turned in, and was under the requirement that it had to be in cursive to be acceptable. This didn't change until high school. But still, anytime I had to do a timed essay in class, I pretty much HAD to write in cursive by that point because if I tried to print it, it would a) look like crap and b) take a lot longer.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I'm 40 and you hit a nerve with me. I prefer to write in cursive because it is much faster and smoother. Whenever I have something long I have to write-a paragraph or more- I write in cursive. All my in-class essays in college were in cursive. HOWEVER! People tell me my cursive is illegible. I have my own style where I don't close a lot of my letters and write kind of mall so people can't read it. I even had professors return tests to me to type up because they couldn't read it. So for others I tend to print a lot more. If I am filling out a form of some kind I will print.

Interestingly for my own uses I tend to switch between cursive and printing, but I think that is more an OCD thing than a style thing. I have just decided that certain things need to be in cursive and certain things need to be printed for whatever wacky reasons OCD'ish people decide on these things.

 

[Kestra]

I don't think there's anything weird about it. People are going to have different abilities and preferences.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I'm 24 and I write in cursive seldomly. People say it's faster but it takes me much longer to write in cursive than to just write normally. I will doodle in cursive when I'm bored sometimes.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

See, this is where I'm starting to think I'm weird. I'm only 26!

 

[O'Dib]

I'm 25, I write cursive, but I went through a European elementary school. Never noticed it was an odd thing for Americans, though.

 

[auntiehill]

I'm 40 (yes, I'm old) and I write in my own bizarre combination of print and cursive. I'm just looking at notes I took today while working. When I wrote the word "minutes," the M and I are printed. The NUTES is all in one cursive mash-up. Then, on the word, "working," I wrote the WORK in print, and then ING is all in cursive (however, the N is barely visible).

Most people find my writing illegible.

My hubby says I have the handwriting of a serial killer.

 

[Cali]

I write in cursive most of the time, so does almost everyone I work with too, and I'm 22 with co-workers ranging from 18 - 39.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I'm on the cusp of 49 and I haven't bothered with cursive since Second Grade. The only time that my Second Grade teacher ever got mad at me-- I was the little intellectual, teacher's pet, class librarian-type-- was when I said, "Why have a second way to write that's harder to do and harder to read?"

I still feel the same way. Writing is about communication. One clear method is sufficient.

 

[Jono]

Wrote cursive all through high school but when I got to uni I switched to doing my tests in print. Unless I was pressed for time and then I'd break into cursive to get as much on the page as possible. Come to think of it I use to always write my name in cursive but I can't remember the last time I did that.

Basically if it is something I expect someone else to read I'll print but if it isn't I'll use cursive. My handwriting it pretty terrible as well, even I have a hard time reading what I've written at times. I blame it on being left handed.

 

[JonathonWally]

When I'm doing my own writing, I use a combination of print, cursive, and shorthand. Using the fastest way to write a each letter. Sometimes my mind just works so fast and I have too keep up.

It also very much depends on the type of pen I'm using. Certain ink flows and tips lend themselves better to cursive or print.

I've never met anyone under 30 (besides nurses) who know how to write in shorthand, I'm a freak like that.

I can always write calligraphy.

But for work, all of my medical charting is written or re-written in perfect print so it's unmistakable and unquestionable.

I'm 28

 

[Jetfire]

I print...except with Sig...even then I find myself wanting to print,

 

[Jan]

I'm 54 and I've been lettering (print-all caps) since third or fourth grade simply because I thought it looked better. My signature is the only thing I 'write' and it's semi-illegible. I enjoy reading cursive by people who can do it well.

Jan

 

[Geckothan]

I'm 19 and I write in print (with the exception of my signature), though we were taught to use cursive at school (and at one point, we were forced to use it too, but they stopped caring after a while). I don't really see the point of using it though, it's quicker for me to write in print and significantly more legible (though my cursive is pretty neat).

 

[Joe Washington]

I'm 21 years old and I think it's normal. You shoudn't be feel ashamed in any way or consider yourself an oddity. Writing in cursive should make you feel the opposite. It shows that you are an elegant writer.

 

[JustKate]

I write in cursive when I want to write legibly and the reason is that it's generally much more readible than my "printing." The quote marks are around that last word for a reason, and that reason is that I've spent so many years as a reporter taking notes using printing - or at least something that started out as printing - that my printing has degenerated into something that is little more than my own personal version of shorthand - JustKatehand, if you will. I can print fairly legibly...but I have to work really hard to not fall right back into JustKatehand. In contrast, my cursive, having been used far less often than "printing" has for such purposes as writing quotes and statistical data down accurately at verbal speed, tends to be much neater and more readible.

What it comes down to is that there is no cursive version of JustKatehand, so cursive is, for me, generally more legible.

But frankly, neither my printing nor my cursive could be considered "elegant." Readible, sure - at least at times. But elegant they ain't.

 

[SeerSGB]

33 and write n cursive. Writing in print just breaks my line of thought, where as cursive just lets things flow. Plus, for some off reason, my hand doesn't tire as fast with cursive as it does with print.

 

[LitmusDragon]

"I print most of the time; don't use much more cursive than my signature"

I would also add that I have detested having to hand write anything since a very early age. Anything I could possibly typewrite instead, I would. Sometimes I would even rework fill-in-the-blank tests on a word processor so that I could type-write the answers.